


Greetings

by sekaiseifuku



Series: Happy Robots in Love [1]
Category: DRAMAtical Murder, DRAMAtical Murder (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Clear's Good End, M/M, Nobody is Dead, Post-Canon Fix-It, Robot/Human Relationships, this is really the only way this situation won't end in tears and sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-02-28 19:05:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2743754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sekaiseifuku/pseuds/sekaiseifuku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clear had stopped saying "I'm home" eight days ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Greetings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fio/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!  
> 

Clear had stopped saying "I'm home" eight days ago. 

It was a silly thing to do, really -- saying something like that when there was no one to respond. But the importance of daily greetings had been one of the first things his grandfather had taught him, and Tae-san and Aoba had taken them seriously as well. The words may have been small, but they connected people to each other, little by little. 

_A year of greetings builds familiarity, ten years a bond_ , his grandfather had once said. 

Clear wondered -- what did nineteen years, two months and ten days of them build? It felt like it was something much, much bigger than a simple bond.

He slipped off his shoes and stepped up into the house, bending down to straighten them next to Aoba's spare pair of boots before turning on the entryway light and putting his bag onto the side table. 

There was something about coming home to an empty house that he couldn't get used to. It didn't make much sense, as he'd been very much alone in the time when he'd slept.... before. 

Before Aoba.

But then there were a lot of things that didn't make sense to Clear, even after all these years. He supposed that he should feel comforted by his inability to revert to the way he had been before Aoba. Today, any AI worth the sum of its parts would have no difficulty locating and modifying the necessary algorithms in the blink of an eye. 

But Clear had always been hopeless at self-repair.

Every time he opened the door to darkness and silence, there was an emptiness within him that responded in kind, growing deeper every day. Silence, after all, was just another form of greeting that demanded an answer. This reaction, too, should comfort him, shouldn't it? One additional piece of evidence to support what everyone had been telling him for years and years -- he was human. 

He knew it should comfort him. 

But it didn't. 

He pulled two mandarin oranges from his bag and made his way to the living room, where the family altar was nestled snugly in a corner next to a stack of art books that was almost as tall as he was. If Tae-san had been there, she surely would have scolded him for cluttering up the place.

He knelt in front of the large cabinet, opening its doors and placing one orange on the small platform inside the altar, and another in front of Tae-san's picture, which sat immediately beside the altar. He reached for the matches that sat beside her picture and struck one. The sharp smell of sulfur drifted up to his nose. The incense caught fire immediately, its familiar smoke curling upward and filling the air with a scent Clear now always associated with home. Tae-san had been untraditional in many ways, but she had always maintained and demanded a deep respect for honoring the family's ancestors. 

Theirs was a strange family, linked together not by blood like so many others, but by choice and years of shared experiences. Other than Tae-san, Clear hadn't actually known any of the people honored by the shrine, but they were a long, interconnected line of lives that had led to Tae-san. And despite the fact that Tae-san and Aoba had shared no physical relation, she had made him possible as much as any parent or grandparent. 

Every human's lineage was a strange, wonderful thing, but this one... it was special. It was Aoba's family. And now it was Clear's. Because of that, he was determined to honor it as long as he possibly could. 

He clapped his hands together three times, closing his eyes and bowing before addressing the shrine. "Hello, everyone. I hope you're all doing well tonight," he said, before turning to Tae's picture and addressing it directly. "Tae-san, I've brought you a mandarin orange." 

He didn't really know if Tae-san could hear him, but sometimes when Aoba thought Clear wasn't in earshot, he talked to her picture as if she could. Besides, Clear thought it was better to talk to no one than to run the risk of ignoring Tae-san and making her angry. Whether it was in the form of a discontented spirit or a frypan to the head in the afterlife, any possible number of results were best avoided. 

"You've probably noticed," he said, "but it's getting colder and colder. I don't know if you can catch a cold wherever you are, but I thought you could use the vitamin C in any case. This one is from a fresh batch that Mizuki-san brought back from his trip to Wakayama." 

It was silly, really, but he knew that if Tae-san could hear, she would appreciate the gesture. Besides, if she didn't want it, maybe some of the other ancestors would. Offering rice, fruit, and other foods, he'd learned, was a tradition that stretched back hundreds of years. It made sense that the practice would have started for a reason, and the spirits of ancestors being able to enjoy something delicious was as good an explanation as any.

He really hoped Tae-san could taste it. He'd had one at work and it had been _wonderful_. 

"Speaking of Mizuki-san, things are going very well at work," Clear continued. "The new artist he hired is really amazing, and when there aren't any customers, he's been kind enough to give me pointers on how I can make my designs more natural-seeming.

Aoba had laughed the first time Clear said he had started studying tattooing. Aoba had quickly apologized, but Clear wasn’t angry. 

It really was a very silly idea when you thought about it

"To be honest, I prefer bartending," he continued, "but Mizuki-san is still insisting that I learn how to ink... you know how he is." Clear smiled and shook his head. 

He had always thought it a little funny that out of all of Aoba's friends, Mizuki-san was the one Tae-san had ended up liking the most, even more than Koujaku-san, whom she had adored. 

He wished he would have asked her why that was.

But wishes like that weren't worth very much, were they? When a person was gone, all the wishes in the world couldn't bring back lost opportunities. And if wishes indeed had power, something his grandfather had always told him, there was only one thing Clear could possibly wish for.

"I'm sorry, Tae-san... everyone... but I don't have anything new to report." Clear sighed and bowed his head. "Aoba is... exactly the same."

Clear should know, because he visited the hospital every day. A total of one hundred and eight visits. And for one hundred and one of them, there had been no change at all. 

The first seven visits, Aoba had grown worse and worse every time, and Clear had feared he'd lose him entirely. But on the eighth day, the doctors had told him that Aoba's condition had stabilized suddenly overnight. It was still bad, but was no longer getting worse. Since then, there had been no change. 

Nothing had happened. 

Nothing at all.

"Nishikawa-sensei stopped by while I was there," Clear said after a moment, raising his head. "She said there's still a chance, that we shouldn't give up hope---"

He stopped abruptly, not knowing how to continue. He honestly had know idea what to say to Tae-san and the ancestors. The attending doctor, Nishikawa-sensei, had been so very reassuring, but there was something about the way she stood next to him, placing her small hand on his shoulder and smiling gently, that made him think she didn't _really_ believe what she'd been telling him for the past three months. 

Over the years, Clear had gotten much better at reading people, but today -- more than ever -- he wondered if that really was a good thing.

The soft electronic sound of his Coil going off stopped that train of thought, the bright flash of the indicator light cutting off his thoughts and jolting him upright. He raised his arm, touched the familiar receiver and the holographic projection flashed in front of him.

 

_\----NOIZ-SAN----_  


He swiped the ACCEPT projection and the call connected, Noiz-san's familiar face immediately stared back at him. Seeing him there, even in projected form, sent a bittersweet wave of nostalgia through Clear.

"Oi," Noiz-san said, his bland voice the same as always; somehow a sound that Clear desperately needed to hear.

"Noiz-san!" Clear couldn't help beaming in delight. "It's been a long time! It's so good to see you!"

"Yeah, you too." Noiz-san gave what passed for a smile and tilted his his head, looking past Clear. "You're at home?"

"Yes!" Clear replied, nodding. "I just got back from work!" 

"Good. I'm coming over."

Clear's mouth fell open in shock. "You're on Midorijima?"

"Yeah, I got in to Tokyo a couple hours ago and managed to transit onto the last flight to the island. I just landed." He paused---

"... I've got Ren with me."

A sudden surge of emotion started to build in Clear's chest. "... is he okay? Did you figure out what was wrong?"

"Yeah."

"What was it?" 

"It's complicated." The image of Noiz-san shifted as he raised his hand to hail a taxi. "I'll explain when I get there. But don't worry," he added, almost kindly. "Everything's cool."

The Coil projection then cut off, disintegrating into a shower of electronic pixels that quickly faded from sight.

Clear closed his eyes and clenched his fists, the feeling in his chest swelling. Noiz-san was on the island and he had Ren-san. 

And Ren-san was _okay_.

It had terrified him when he'd gone to visit Aoba that day. He'd arrived and found Ren-san curled by Aoba's side just as he had been every day since the accident, but this time, Ren-san had been completely unresponsive. No matter how hard Clear had tried, he hadn't been able to wake him. After an hour of troubleshooting on his own, he'd left the hospital with Ren-san in a paper shopping bag he'd borrowed from one of the nurses. He'd then spent the rest of the day desperately trying to find someone who knew the early-model Allmates well enough to attempt a full diagnostic. 

There had been no one on the island who had even been willing to look at a model that old. The few Allmate shops that even dealt with the animal models anymore had only serviced the most recent generations for quite some time. The humanoid models, after all, had been out for years and years, and were much more popular than the animal models. It was surprising, really, how quickly Toue's technology had been adapted for mass production. 

Aoba liked to tease Clear about his hundreds of thousands of descendants. While that may have been true if looked at from one perspective, Clear felt no connection whatsoever to them. They weren't family, after all. 

In the end, there had really been only one person he could trust with someone as precious to Aoba as Ren-san.

"Tae-san... everyone... I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut our conversation short." Clear quickly dabbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his coat. "Ren-san's coming home."

He pressed his hands together and bowed again. "As always, thank you for your support." 

Naturally, he received no response.

He rose to his feet and rushed into the kitchen. At this time of night, the drive from the airport would take about twenty minutes. It wasn't much time, but it might be enough. 

Tae-san had always said that there were two kinds of guests: trespassers and family. Trespassers got tea -- it was the least that could be hospitably done. Family, though... family needed to be fed. It was funny that despite her gruff exterior, Tae-san had had a very broad definition of "family." And of course, by extension so did he and Aoba.

It had taken Clear a long time, but before Tae-san had gone to join her ancestors, he had finally mastered her donut recipe. Tonight, it didn't take long to put on his old apron, get the oil heated and the ingredients into the bowl, the dough soon mixed to the perfect consistency. He would make the majority of the batch later, but he quickly patted a few into shape and dropped them into the oil to make sure the temperature was right. 

Noiz-san had always loved Tae-san's donuts and it had been a very long time since he'd been around to have any. It had been a while since _anyone_ had been around to have any, as a matter of fact, and there was something about the sweet smell that rose from the fryer that settled the feeling of unease Clear'd been carrying in his stomach just a little bit. It made him smile and lift onto the balls of his feet, bouncing in place as he turned the pastries over in the oil.

He was cooking for family who were returning home. And that was a wonderful, brilliant thing. 

He was just removing the donuts from the oil, placing them on a plate lined with kitchen paper, when the doorbell rang, the sound echoing through the empty house. 

"Coming!" Clear called over his shoulder as he grabbed the last donut with the tongs and dropped it onto the plate. Not bothering to undo his apron, he rushed into the entryway just as Noiz-san opened the door.

It had been more than a year since Noiz-san had visited, but he hadn't changed at all, Clear noticed. His hair was the same. His clothes were the same. The perpetual crease between his eyes and frown lines around his mouth were exactly the same. He seemed as grumpy as ever and it was exactly what Clear needed to see. 

"Noiz-san!" Clear couldn't help it; he launched himself across the entryway at Noiz-san, who stepped aside just in time to avoid the dreaded hug attack. This, of course, caused Clear to fall flat on his face, half-in and half-out of the house. 

"So me~an," he groaned as he pushed himself up off the ground far enough to realize he'd fallen on top of a rather well-polished pair of shoes. 

Shoes that were attached to a long, slender pair of legs. 

"Oh!" he said suddenly, pulling himself upright and craning his neck upward to get a look at whomever Noiz-san had brought with him. 

The QR code imprinted on the skin of the figure's neck made it obvious. 

"Noiz-san got a new Allmate!" He leapt to his feet and offered his hand to the humanoid. It was important to make a good first impression, Allmate or not. "I'm Clear - it's very nice to meet you." 

It was one of the standard models, which was a little surprising to Clear. He would have thought that Noiz-san would have gone with a fully-custom model, considering how rich he was. Still, though, as one of the companion models, the Allmate was really something to look at. Miles above Clear himself, really. 

Like Ren-san, Clear was fast becoming obsolete.

He was just admiring the black waves of the Allmate's hair when he was pulled forward suddenly, arms wrapping around him in an unexpected embrace. "Clear..." it whispered softly, tightening his hold. 

It was a voice Clear would recognize anywhere, its tones low and rich. 

"Ren-san!" There was a strange burning sensation in his chest, accompanied by a familiar prickling in his eyes as he raised his arms to reciprocate. "You got a new body!"

He pulled back, taking a second look. "Wah... you're bigger than I am now!" He grinned and reached up to ruffle Ren-san's hair. "...but your hair is just as fluffy-fluffy!"

Ren-san's cheeks pinkened in what was really an adorable way. "... Clear!"

"Idiots," Noiz-san mumbled, more fondly than anything.

"Ren-san, what _happened_?" Clear asked, grabbing his hands and squeezing them. "You wouldn't come out of sleep mode, not even when I tried to restart you!"

"Aah... about that...." Ren-san's glance shifted to the side.

"Massive memory overload," Noiz-san interrupted. "His systems shut down to protect him. It's a good thing you couldn't get him started, too -- he would have suffered an irrevocable meltdown without someplace to dump all that data."

Ren-san smiled uncomfortably. "It was very close..."

Clear wasn't entirely sure what any of that meant, really, but that didn't matter because Ren-san was here and he was operational, which meant that when Aoba woke up, he would---

"... oh..." 

That thought ended the thrum of joy inside Clear, extinguishing the small warmth that had begun to spread through his limbs at the sound of Ren-san's voice and the feel of his arms tight around him.

No matter how happy he was to see Ren-san and Noiz-san, it didn't change the fact that he was seeing them alone. 

"Ren-san," Clear began, looking up into his eyes. "Aoba's still not awake..."

Ren-san smiled softly. "I know."

"Look," Noiz-san interrupted. "You guys can beat around the bush all night, but I'm hungry and jetlagged as hell." He turned and shouted at a taxi parked on the other side of the street, "Hey! Stop hiding and get your sorry ass over here."

From the open window of the car, Clear heard some shuffling sounds before the door swung open and an unfamiliar man stepped out. 

No, not a man. Another _Allmate_. Clear recognized this model, too -- the first shop he'd taken Ren-san to had had an identical one on display. It was the very latest personal companion model, just released in the past couple months.

As it crossed the street, Clear couldn't help noticing it moved a bit... awkwardly. He supposed he wasn't one to talk, though, given his history. 

"So Noiz-san _did_ get a new Allmate!" he clapped.

"Hey, he's not mine," Noiz-san held up his hands and shook his head. "No way I'm taking on that piece of shit. He's been enough trouble as it is... a damned pain in my ass."

"Hey, I didn't ask you for help," the Allmate snapped back, his voice sending a jolt down Clear's spine. 

"No, but your boyfriend did," Noiz-san replied, shrugging. "Same thing."

"Dammit, Noiz..." The Allmate's voice trailed off as he glanced at Clear, eyes catching his glance before darting away quickly. He shifted from one foot to another, almost nervously.

Clear felt like he should say something, but his mind was going in a million directions. If he were human, he thought, he might be having some kind of stress response. Tunnel vision, white noise, or something equally dramatic, just like in the romance novels that Tae-san had kept hidden in her room. Because there was something about the Allmate's voice that was so _Aoba_ that Clear thought he might not be able to handle it.

There wasn't a single hint of Scrap. The pitch and tone of the voice were all wrong and the voice resonated in that flat way all Allmates' voices did. But the way it formed the words -- the cadence and stress and the so-typical annoyance with Noiz-san... 

It was all Aoba.

And then there was the expression on its... no... _his_ face.

"Anyway," Noiz-san turned back to Clear, "he's your problem now." He strode past, crossing the threshold into the house and pausing to slip off his shoes. "Do I smell donuts?" he asked, not waiting for a reply before heading straight in the direction of the kitchen, leaving the three of them behind.

Clear felt like he should do something, like he should say something, but instead he was frozen in place, staring at the empty entryway. 

Because Ren-san was back and in a completely different body. 

And he was with an Allmate who acted so very much like Aoba that it made Clear's head swim. It made his eyes feel prickly with the growing feeling of something that seemed very much like hope.

"Uh...." the Allmate began, his voice low. 

Clear turned and the sight of the Allmate biting his bottom lip and looking to the side -- the same exact thing Aoba always did when he didn't know what to say -- obliterated any doubts Clear had. 

"Aoba..." Clear managed to say through the smile that suddenly felt like it might break his face. "It's you... right?"

He looked up, the unfamiliar dark eyes wide with surprise. "... yeah..." 

It was Aoba. 

Aoba was alive and awake and standing right there. 

That was all it took. Clear was down the pathway and had his arms around him before he could even think about it. The feel of Aoba's body was different -- more solid than Clear was used to in a way he couldn't exactly identify. He was taller and they fit together entirely differently, but still... it was _Aoba_. 

"Welcome back," Clear said, the familiar words catching in his throat. 

"I..." Aoba started as he wrapped his arms around Clear tightly. "I'm home."

Clear laughed and rubbed his head into the crook of Aoba's neck, trying to memorize the feel of his new skin. "Ren-san, too," he said, turning his head. "Welcome home."

"My apologies for having kept you waiting," Ren-san replied automatically, polite as ever.

"I'm sorry," Aoba said softly into Clear's hair.

"Why?"

"I tried so hard, but I couldn't do it." Aoba said, his arms tightening. "I couldn't wake up... "

"Aoba..." Ren-san said, his voice gentle.

"I tried _so hard_ ," Aoba continued. "I could hear you sometimes, talking... and I wanted to come back so badly, but no matter how much I fought, I couldn't find my way." 

"But you _are_ back!" Clear exclaimed, pulling back to look at Aoba's different, yet perfectly familiar face. 

"Yeah, but..." Aoba's voice trailed off uncomfortably as he evaded Clear's gaze. "I'm... like this..."

"Hm... silly," Clear interrupted with a smile, reaching up with his index finger and tapping Aoba on the nose. "Aoba is Aoba. Just like Ren-san is Ren-san... and I'm me."

Because it was that easy. After all, they'd been through this before when Clear's original body had been breaking down. They'd talked about what might have to be done if they stopped being able to find replacement parts for Ren-san. 

But Clear had never even thought to dream that they would face this kind of thing with Aoba. 

What an unexpected, amazing thing that was.

"It's wonderful." Clear said, his smile broadening so much it felt like his face might just break in two.

"Told you," Ren-san said to Aoba, his voice kind.

"This," Clear continued, taking in everything about Aoba's new body, "it's the most wonderful thing in the world."

Because it didn't matter that Aoba was taller and broader and had brown hair instead of blue. It didn't matter that his face was more elegant and his eyes were dark and mysterious instead of clear and bright. It didn't even matter that his voice no longer called to Clear the way it had since the day it'd woken him from that dreamless sleep almost twenty years ago. 

It was an unimaginable miracle.

"... but how did it _happen_?" Clear asked. Because while he, a robot, had somehow become human, there was no way humans could become robots. 

But there Aoba was, right in front of him and proving that assumption to be entirely wrong.

"Ah," Aoba said, finally looking at him and smiling softly---

"Well, to explain that, there's something you need to know about Ren..."


End file.
